Tag Archive for: ditch dieting

3 Signs You’re Ready to Stop Dieting (and What to do Next)

“I’m planning to start a diet again after the holidays, but something in me is resisting. I’m not sure what to do, I’m so confused.”

This is a question I got recently from a woman who reached out to speak with me.

As the end of the year approaches and a New Year begins, it’s not uncommon to start thinking of the new diet you will start on January 1st. But there might be that little voice inside you that is saying “no, not again. I don’t have it in me to do this AGAIN!”.

This is actually a good sign! It’s a sign that you’ve hit “diet bottom” where you don’t have the bandwidth or energy to track another calorie, count another point, measure another morsel of food etc.

You want OUT of this diet game.

But you don’t know what to do instead.

In the video below, I’ve laid out the 3 signs that you’re ready to stop dieting, and 3 steps to take to start creating a healthier relationship with food and your body.

Click the video below to watch now.

 

If you’ve been dieting for years, and even decades, please know that you CAN learn to trust yourself, your body, and your decisions around food.

After watching the video, pop your name and email below to Break the Spell of Diets in 3 Days. It’s free, and you will have clarity of your next steps.

If you’d like to set up a consultation to discuss further, email me at Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com 

 

 

What Does it Feel Like to Have WholeBody Trust™?

What does it feel like to trust yourself around food? To sit down to the table for dinner and trust that you will stop eating when you feel comfortably satisfied? To look at a menu and know that your body is giving you a message as to what it really wants to eat in that moment? To look at the chocolate on the counter and not be afraid that you will devour it and then feel guilt and shame?

This trust is something you were born with. So where is it now? It was stolen from you from all the years of dieting. You see, when you stop listening to yourself and start listening to the rules of the diets and the diet gurus telling you what, when and how much to eat, that body trust that you were born with gets silenced.

But there is good news!

You CAN regain this trust in yourself, your body and your food! I promise you, you can!

How?

By committing to stop dieting and work through the steps to reclaim WholeBody Trust™.

WholeBody Trust™ is a philosophy I created that is build on 3 Pillars: Mind Trust™, Hunger Trust™ and Food Trust™.

Click the video below to learn more about these 3 Pillars of WholeBody Trust™.

 

How can you get started on YOUR WholeBody Trust™ journey?

Just pop your name and email into the boxes below to get started by Breaking the Spell of Diets in 3 Days (and get a taste of body trust on day 3)!

 

Last Chance to Get Freedom to Eat Forever™

I will be retiring my Freedom to Eat Forever™ Online Intuitive Eating Program at midnight Eastern on August 31st.

This program has helped MANY women and men break free of dieting, reclaim the trust in themselves and live their lives to the fullest (with guilt-free eating)!

And now is the LAST CHANCE for you to EVER get your hands on this program.

Why am I retiring the program you might wonder?

Because it’s going through an overhaul! Several of the Intuitive Eating principles have been updated and the new program will reflect these latest changes.

In addition, I will be adding new lessons so you can go deeper to uncover the root causes of your food and body struggles. I’ve been doing this deeper work with my 1-1 clients and it’s time I brought it to my online program.

You can get the updated program for FREE when you purchase the Freedom to Eat Forever Program now, before August 31st at midnight Eastern.

If you’ve been thinking about getting started on your Intuitive Eating journey but have been sitting on the fence, I would highly recommend you take advantage of this End of Summer Special. The new program (name will be revealed in a few weeks) will be at a MUCH higher investment.

Click HERE below to get your hands on Freedom to Eat Forever™ before it’s taken off the shelves for good.

BONUS: I’ve added a WhatsApp Chat Community to the program so you can get support and your questions answered quickly! You don’t need to do this alone. There are others waiting in the chat to say hello to you!

Plus there are a ton of other bonuses. Learn more HERE!

Don’t know what WhatsApp is? It’s a free app that you download to your phone. You join our group and type away. It’s just like sending a text to your friend, except this goes to your Freedom to Eat Forever family!

YES, I want Freedom to Eat Forever!

 

 

What it Feels Like to Not Diet

Imagine getting up in the morning and your first thought is “I am really looking forward to today”, and NOT “I am going to be really good today”.

Imagine getting dressed for the day and feeling confident in the clothes you put on (the first outfit, NOT the tenth).

Imagine walking into the kitchen to prepare breakfast and knowing intuitively what you want to eat to fuel your body for the start of the day, and NOT skip breakfast so you save your calories for later.

Imagine going out with co-workers for lunch and choosing what YOU want to eat, NOT a choice based on what someone else thinks you should eat (i.e. ordering the burger because that’s what YOU want and not the salad because you’re expected to eat a salad).

Imagine coming home after a long day’s work and taking 20 minutes to unwind and care for yourself, and NOT heading to the kitchen and mindlessly look in the fridge for something to throw in your mouth.

Imagine going out to dinner with your partner and enjoying the conversation and time together, and NOT stressing about what you’re eating.

THIS is how it feels to not diet!

This is …

FREEDOM to eat WITHOUT GUILT.

FREEDOM to be you!

FREEDOM to live your life unapologetically.

FREEDOM to respect all the wonders your body does for you

…instead of trying to shrink it over and over and over again.

This is what it feels like to never diet again.

To really learn to trust yourself that you are fully capable of making food choices to honor your health and your body.

Regaining Trust

Regaining trust in your body and yourself doesn’t happen overnight. But with each positive eating and body experience, you build another thread of trust, and soon, that trust becomes a rope and ultimately a bridge to regaining WholeBody Trust™.

Now’s Your Chance

You can start the process right now by …

…making the decision to stop dieting

…making the decision to take a leap of faith

…and making the decision to say yes to my offer of investing in yourself with the Freedom to Eat Forever™ Intuitive Eating Program.

Freedom to Eat Forever™ is my signature online program that will walk you through 5 steps towards becoming an Intuitive Eater and leaving dieting behind for good.

This program is now 75% off and won’t be available EVER after August 31st because I will be releasing a brand-new Intuitive Eating Program shortly.

You might think “great, I’ll wait for the new program”. Well, of course you can, but that program will launch at a much higher investment. But it will be yours FREE when you purchase Freedom to Eat Forever™ now.

Why am I offering this? Because I want you to get started on your journey now. I don’t want you to waste another minute of your life dieting and being disappointed, again.

Support is Waiting

Freedom to Eat Forever is a self-paced online program. However, because I know how important support is, I have started a WhatsApp Support Community. This is a group of amazing people who are on the same intuitive eating journey, and its where you can get your questions answered. I, of course, am in that group every day commenting and supporting everyone as well.

Won’t you join us?

Click HERE to learn more and to start your Intuitive Eating Journey today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Eat this, Don’t Eat That” Never Works: 2 Case Studies

After years of being told “eat this, don’t eat that”, it’s logical that you just want to be in charge of your own eating decisions. Yet, that can be a scary proposition if you aren’t sure any longer how to eat. It’s more than likely all the food rules you’ve been given have been for the end goal of weight loss, and mostly under the guise of “for your health”.

But what if we put weight loss on the side for now. What if learning how to eat to manage blood glucose levels, lower cholesterol levels and improve energy can be done without the worry of your weight?

That would be amazing.

Charles’s Story

Let me share a story with you. Charles (name changed for privacy) came to see me with a diagnosis of uncontrolled diabetes. He has type 2 diabetes for many years, is on several medications but is still having a hard time getting his blood glucose into target range. He’s been focusing all these years on losing weight to manage diabetes and has been busy counting calories and restricting his intake of wholesome food that he was told to avoid if he wants to lose weight. “Eat this, don’t eat that” became a mantra he heard all too often. So, he chose pre-portioned meals and snacks that were marketed for weight loss. He didn’t lose weight, nor was he able to bring his blood glucose down.

I suggested he put the worry of weight loss on the side for now and instead focus on understanding what is happening is his body in terms of glucose tolerance and insulin resistance. He started working with my in my Healthy Living with Diabetes Program™ and he quickly learned how his body processes carbs, how to plan meals to match this ability, and the many variables aside from food that can impact his blood glucose.

Fast forward 4 months and Charles’s blood glucose and A1C are well within target range and he has minimized his risk of diabetes complications. Did he lose weight? It just so happens he did, but the weight loss was an OUTCOME of his habit and behaviors changes. It was never the focus.

James’s Story

Now let’s look at another client, also with type 2 diabetes, not well-managed. His lovely wife reached out to me for help. She is so worried about James’s health (name changed for privacy), she’s at her wits end.

James had a history of yo-yo dieting, having lost and gained 100 pounds a few times in his life. But now things are different. He was diagnosed with diabetes yet he’s not taking responsibility to learn how to manage his blood glucose levels. She made an appointment to see me, and I asked her to speak with James about joining the session. He did.

While James was reluctant to share too much in session, he did listen as I shared with him the process I use to educate and empower my clients to learn about their diabetes, and how to best care for themselves. He did seem somewhat interested but was unable to commit to stop dieting in an effort to get healthier.

James’s wife told me after the session that he doesn’t like people telling him what to do, which is what happened his whole life when dieting. I assured her that in weight-neutral diabetes care, it’s the exact opposite. The client is in the driver’s seat. I am a passenger and act as a co-pilot in teaching and educating.

Letting Go of the Diet Mentality

Whether you have diabetes or not, if you’ve been dieting to lose weight with hopes of getting “healthier”, chances are you are still dieting and on the proverbial diet roller coaster (and not much healthier!). Getting out of the diet mentality is not easy, but it IS possible. It means trying something you’ve never tried before – that is to learn to trust yourself to make the best decisions for yourself around food and eating.

Free Resource if You Have Diabetes

If you have diabetes and want to learn how to manage your blood glucose without restriction and dieting, download my free eBook: 5 Keys to Manage Diabetes Without Dieting.

Free Resource if You’ve Been Yo-Yo Dieting

If you’ve been chronically dieting and are at your wits end, take this short journey towards Breaking the Spell of Diets in 3 Days Online Experience (or pop your name and email in below).

And, if have any questions along the way, be sure to reach out.

3 Ways to Stop the Food Shaming

Do you find yourself feeling “guilty” or “bad” after eating certain foods? Do you categorize these foods as ‘fattening” or “cheat meals”?

Or are you the one judging others based on what they eat?

Either way, you may be experiencing food shame. The concept of classifying food as “good” or “bad” and then judging others, or yourself, based on what you eat is called food shaming.  This can negatively impact your health.

Food-shaming is criticizing or judging someone (or yourself) for eating something that doesn’t match your definition of what food is “good”.

Examples of food shaming include judging your girlfriend for choosing pizza over a salad or making comments to your partner who has skipped breakfast, or shaming your colleague for being a vegetarian.

Food shaming can also be internal, when you shop at the grocery store and deprive yourself of buying ice cream because it’s “bad”, or you beat yourself up for purchasing the chips.

This is just a short list of the common types of food shaming that happens every day. The reality is that we need to watch what we are saying to others and to ourselves about food choices.

When You Shame Yourself for Your Food Choices

Judging yourself and speaking negatively about your food choices stems from influences and messages that you receive throughout life. These messages come early in life from parents and build throughout your years from the media, friends and even healthcare professionals.

Food shaming can lead to further problems down the road. Food shaming can create such a strong fear of what to eat that you become so rigid that you risk your physical and emotional health from either malnutrition, disordered eating, or eating disorders.

3 Ways to Stop the Food Shaming

  1. Embrace Intuitive Eating: Learning to break the spell that diets have over you and dismantling diet culture messages will help you relearn to trust your food choices again. Tuning into your physiological cues to eating is only one part of the journey. Developing a strong backbone to the culture you live in while learning to neutralize all foods will help you stop the food shaming.
  2. Acknowledge and Reframe Negative Self-Talk: When you find yourself going down the rabbit hole of negative self-talk around what you ate, immediately push pause, and recognize your inner critic at work. Let your inner critic know that you hear her but don’t value what she has to say any longer. Reframe into a more positive accurate statement that is aligned with who you are and the goals you have set forth for yourself.
  3. Remove All Judgement Around Food: When you label foods as “good” or “bad”, you essentially are giving power to these foods and placing them on a pedestal. This is why when you have a trigger and reach for these foods, you tend to overeat on them followed by judgement, guilt and shame. By removing the labels from all foods and taking the conditions off these foods, you neutralize them and they lose their allure.

Defend yourself from food shaming by breaking the cycle of dieting, stop labeling foods as good and bad, and reach out for support when you need it. You don’t have to do this alone!

Over time, you will find yourself more at peace with food so you can live your life to the fullest!

How to Free Yourself from Food Fear

If you’re like me, the last few months have been filled with anxiety regarding the uncertainty of the pandemic. It seems like every day the news is reporting something more unnerving than the day before. With everything going on in the world, you are likely experiencing a lot of stress.

You’re not going to be able to control all of the stressors in your life, however you can take charge of some of them. Weight loss companies are aware of how stressed and anxious you are and use this to fuel your insecurities. You may have been hearing more weight loss advertisements on the radio and television lately.

Try not to let these companies take up any headspace, they are just added stress to your life. Instead, think about how wonderful your body has been over the past few months, it has helped you survive a global pandemic. Your body deserves to be celebrated!

Celebrating Your Body through Building Trust

I was thinking about ways you could celebrate your body, and I thought National Macaroni Day would be the perfect time to show your body that you DO trust it. You may not have realized it, but yesterday we celebrated this Macaroni-shaped pasta.

Let’s face it. If you’ve dieted, then more than likely you realize that pasta has been demonized as an “unhealthy” food because it’s a high carbohydrate food. This is unfortunate because you need carbohydrate, it’s the main energy source for your body. And because pasta is delicious!

Macaroni, and other pastas, are chock full of fiber, especially whole-grain varieties. Getting sufficient dietary fiber in your meals throughout the day is an act of self-care!

Fiber keeps your bowel movements regular and helps with satiety. It keeps you fuller for longer, so you aren’t rummaging through the cabinets searching for food throughout the day.

Demonizing Foods

The definition of “demonizing” is to portray as wicked and threatening.

Before I started teaching intuitive eating, it had not occurred to me that there were foods that were being demonized by the diet industry. But as I got knee deep into learning about diet culture and its sneaky ways, I came to find out that there’s a long list of foods that people are afraid to eat.

Yes, afraid! People have a ton of food fear!

“Oh no, I can’t eat _____ (fill in the blank). It’s bad for me.”
“I’m scared to eat _____ (fill in the blank), I will gain weight.”
“I’d love to eat _____ (fill in the blank), but I won’t fit into my pants tomorrow.”

Most of this fear is around weight gain. Yes, sometimes it’s about health. But often even that is under the guise of weight loss.

No one, and I mean no one, no matter what shape or size, should be afraid of food and made to feel that they are wrong or “bad” for eating certain food.

Freedom from Food Fear

One of the ways to get rid of food fear is to learn to build trust around that food. That means that you eat that food, see that nothing “terrible” happened (i.e. you didn’t gain 5 pounds over night), and then eat it again.

I am not talking about binge eating on these foods. Nor am I speaking about “see it, want it, eat it” without any thought given to eat.

That is a BIG misconception about Intuitive Eating. Those who are hesitant to begin this journey think they will “lose control” (their words) around foods. I’ve said this multiple times but it is worth repeating:

Intuitive Eating is NOT about instant gratification!

When you embark on the journey towards giving up dieting to reclaim WholeBody Trust™ through intuitive eating, you are learning to be rid of the food fear and body worry that has plagued you for so many years and decades. It’s a feeling of freedom of not being bound to the chains of dieting! It’s about having pleasure and satisfaction in your meals, without guilt. It’s about learning to tune inward to listen to what your body needs and wants. And to be able to trust it.

For how many more years will you be at war with food and your body? Isn’t it time you gave yourself the gift of peace around food?

Click HERE to schedule a complementary call with me and let’s figure out the best way for you to start this journey.

The Truth About Weight Loss that you NEED to Know

Fear of weight gain is one of the biggest obstacles people face when they are deciding whether to begin their intuitive eating journey. And I understand this fear!

If you’ve been dieting for years working hard to lose weight to achieve a body shape and size that you’ve wanted for so long, the idea of NOT dieting anymore is very scary.

I uncover the truth about weight loss in this episode of the Diet Free Zone Show.

 

If you haven’t yet subscribed to my YouTube channel, you can subscribe HERE. New shows coming!

And if you have a suggestion for a topic, just comment below and I will add it to the show content roster.

 

Why You Don’t Need Willpower in Intuitive Eating

In speaking with prospective clients, there’s one comment that comes up a lot in the many conversations we have. That is “I just need more willpower”.

I really do understand the reason behind this comment from so many women who have been struggling with their weight and on diet after diet. It’s because diets require you to have willpower.

You have your lists of “legal” and “illegal” food. But at some point, you want to eat something that’s on that “illegal” list. But you can’t, the diet says NO! You white knuckle it as long as you can, you have willpower! Until you don’t anymore.

So, when one of my email subscribers emailed me the following questions, I just knew I HAD to address it. Here’s the question…

“I’ve been trying intuitive eating, but I just don’t have the willpower to stick with it. How can I strengthen my willpower backbone?”

Before I get to the answer, let’s get clear on your dieting history. It probably goes something like this:

You’ve tried them all. Weight Watchers, Atkins, Weight Watchers, the Blood Type Diet, Weight Watchers, The Scarsdale Diet, Weight Watchers, the HCG Diet, Weight Watchers. Oh, did I mention Weight Watchers?!

It is SO easy to get sucked into sensational claims that come with each of these diets. But what you are finding is that they don’t work. Well, they do “work” if by working you mean losing weight, only to gain it back.

Yes, I won’t disagree. All diets can work in helping you lose weight. But can we agree that they ultimately don’t work, seeing you are here looking for another way?

Throughout all the diets you’ve been on, you’ve tried SO hard to have SO much willpower so you can resist your favorite food that the diets deem bad for you. And, the reason you’ve been sucked into many fad diets is because you only have to endure them for a short period of time and therefore only need to have a little willpower until the diet is over. 

Many diets proudly state “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days”, or “6 weeks to flat abs”. I know this is very tempting. And you think to yourself “ok, I need to have willpower for 30 days (or 6 weeks) and that’s it…I’ll reach my goal and the diet and misery will be over.”

But we know that you can only resist your favorite food for so long. Maybe you can last the 30 days or 6 weeks. Or maybe you can’t. Either way, what happens? When your willpower weakens and you have an emotional trigger, you cave and have the very food you’ve been longing yet been restricting. And now you don’t just have a serving, you have several servings, and it eventually turns into a binge. Next thing that happens >>> feelings of guilt, shame, hopelessness, failure and the negative self-talk and body bashing.

Well, the good news is this.

In the practice of intuitive eating, there is no willpower required. Yay! You learn to take all the conditions off your food and when you do, the power those foods hold over you are no more. Even better, once you learn to trust in your inner signals as your guide to eating, you will no longer need to rebel against the diets that are telling you what to eat and not to eat.

Because YOU are in charge!

So, back to the original question that came in from one of my followers:

“I’ve been trying intuitive eating, but I just don’t have the willpower to stick with it. How can I strengthen my willpower backbone?”

There is no willpower in intuitive eating. What I want you to recognize is if you are still relying on willpower, then you are still harboring a diet mentality. And this will cause you to continue to stumble on your intuitive eating journey.

Give thought to how many times a day or week you think to yourself that you need to have willpower to resist a food.

How many times do you call up your willpower before heading out to a party or dinner with friends?

Call yourself out on it. Recognize it. The more you do and the more you remind yourself that you don’t need willpower in intuitive eating, the more you will see the diet mentality dissipate.

Need help? Just pop your name and email in the boxes below and get started on your FREE 3 day online Break the Spell of Diets Experience. These 3 days will be the starting point you need to start regaining body trust and never rely on willpower again.

 

 

3 Ways to Be Gentle with Yourself on Your Intuitive Eating Journey

We’re getting ready to ease back into life. Slowly but surely, doctor’s offices, hair salons and retail stores are reopening. While it’s an exciting time, it may also be a bit scary for you, I know it is for me. I can’t wait to go get a haircut (which is happening soon!) and I’ve gone to the dentist and the eye doctor. But things are far from “normal”.

The last 3 months have been hugely different for all of us. It’s been unchartered territory and we are learning to navigate our new normal. While sometimes we might wish that things can go back to the way they were, we know that that is not possible (at least not in the next few months). So, it’s important to be gentle with ourselves as we become comfortable with our new “normal”.

The same holds true for your relationship with food.

Rejecting the Diet Mentality Takes Time

If you’ve hit diet bottom (meaning you have zero bandwidth left to count calories, points, track food, or diet anymore), and you know you want to change your relationship with food, I applaud you. By breaking free of diets and food rules, you will ultimately learn to trust yourself, your body, and your food choices.

Key word is…ultimately!

Rejecting the diet mentality takes time! If you’ve been dieting for years and even decades, please know that even though you’re done with dieting, it’ll take time to move away from relying on food rules and others telling you what, when and how much to eat. You’ve been using that as a safety net for years, even though it backfires time and time again. If you haven’t seen the research on dieting, data shows that 95-97% of people who lose weight via dieting gain it back within 1-5 years, and one third to two thirds gain back even more. [1]

Now you might say “Bonnie, I know people that have lost weight through dieting and have kept it off.”. And I say, yes, likely you do. But the research also points to the 3-5% that keep the weight off often do so with disordered eating behaviors (such as eating less for dinner if they had a larger lunch, avoiding bread/carbs or limiting drastically, brushing their teeth after dinner to avoid eating etc…).

The diet mentality is very sneaky and will show up in places and at times that you least expect it. But if you stay the course, you will find that you will recognize this devil sooner and sooner and eventually, you will be free of this destructive mentality.

Push Back Against Sliding Back

I’ll be upfront with you. When you start the journey towards breaking the spell of diets, there will be times when you say “forget it, it’s too scary to make my own food decisions”. You may even consider throwing in the towel and going back to a diet.

But isn’t that what you’ve always done when you’ve tried a diet and it didn’t “work”? You’ve thrown in the towel and went looking for something else that will “work”. And by “work”, we know you are referring to weight loss.

When you find your mind going back to “I just need a diet”, recognize this as the diet mentality and push back against it with all your might! With practice, you’ll find that it doesn’t have half the power you think it has.

3 Ways to Be Gentle with Yourself on Your Intuitive Eating Journey

  1. Realize there is no perfection in Intuitive Eating. You might have strived for perfection when you were dieting, but the good news is there is no perfection when it comes to intuitive eating. This is a major relief when I share this with my clients. It takes a lot of pressure off!

 

  1. View what you once believed was a setback, as growth. When you were dieting, you might have found yourself using language such as “I fell off the wagon”, “I fell off track” or “I messed up”. These were viewed as setbacks (another dieter’s word) and often undid many weeks and months of hard work. In Intuitive Eating, we view these events as experiences for learning and growth. I don’t know about you, but to me, that is way nicer and more gentle!

 

  1. Take care of your self-care needs. Breaking free of the chains of dieting and rejecting the diet mentality is work. I have never, and will never, tell anyone that it’s not. It is work that is well worth it, but it still requires commitment and taking action. To do this, you need to attend to your self-care needs. This includes physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual to name a few. Take the time to jot down what you need to support you on your journey, then go get it. Sometimes this means asking others for help! Don’t be shy! Most people are happy to help.

 

If you’ve been on your Intuitive Eating journey or you are just starting out, remember that it is a much more fulfilling journey when you are gentle with yourself.

To get started with breaking the spell of diets, just enter your name and email in below for the free online experience – Break the Spell of Diets in 3 Days.

[1] Traci Mann et al., “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer,” American Psychologist 62, no. 3 (April 2007